Surprise!

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman (3/12/14)/published in the Sacramento Bee and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Oh, my!  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Dino, CA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is extremely upset with the CIA.  What has the august senator's knickers in a twist?  She claims that the CIA has been nosing around her computer records and those of other committee members.

From the Los Angeles Times:

A long-simmering dispute between the CIA and its Senate overseers erupted into public view Tuesday when the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of possible crimes and of attempting to intimidate committee staffers investigating the CIA's former use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee chairwoman, said the CIA secretly searched computers used by Senate staffers and might have violated constitutional provisions on separation of powers and unreasonable searches, a federal law on computer fraud and abuse, and a presidential order that prohibits the CIA from domestic searches and surveillance.

So Sen. Feinstein demands the White House investigate this intrusion.

Oh, please!

Why on earth did the good senator think she and members of her committee were exempt from all the domestic spying going on (and on ... and on) for lo, these many years. Did she really think that her computer was sacrosanct because of her position?  Her status as a cheerleader for everything the CIA, Defense Department Intelligence, the NSA does apparently isn't enough.

Welcome to our world, Dianne.

Blowback

(A Cagle cartoon published 4/13/13 and snagged from All Voices.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Here's today's punch in the gut from the Los Angeles Times

Overall, at least 349 U.S. service members committed suicide last year, the most since the Pentagon began releasing statistics about a decade ago. In comparison, 295 Americans were killed in combat last year in Afghanistan. So far this year, 99 more suicides have been confirmed. 

Even for the Army, where soldiers have little privacy, the Ft. Bliss program is intrusive.

Each company-sized unit and above must submit a monthly list of soldiers with known emotional, financial or drug problems. Other soldiers may be assigned to watch those considered high-risk. Ranking officers follow up.

Soldiers are trained to recognize warning signs in themselves and others, and told to inform superiors if they suspect a potential suicide. Mental health counselors have set up offices near brigade headquarters. Troops are tested for drugs up to eight times a year; the Army normally does only one. The hospital doubled the beds in its psychiatric ward to 28 after complaints about long waits for treatment.

The system seems to help. Ft. Bliss saw only five suicides last year, down from seven in 2011. The number of suicides rose sharply at nearly every other major Army base, including Ft. Bragg, Ft. Hood and Ft. Campbell.

"If you get a soldier to treatment, the chances are he'll live," said Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, a West Point graduate who commands Ft. Bliss and once served as President Clinton's military aide. "We're really emphasizing getting help." ...

For decades, the suicide rate in the Army was less than half the male civilian rate. It began rising as the Army expanded to meet manpower needs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..  [Emphasis added]

OK, so the Fort Bliss program seems to work, which is a good thing.  The problem is that other bases don't have the same program, primarily because there isn't the money and manpower available right now for the development of comparable programs, either because of the sequester or the knowledge that the defense budget is going to be cut anyway and this Congress isn't going to cut those fancy tank and fighter jets out of the picture, thereby angering the defense contractors.  (Hence the cartoon.)

But I think there is more going on here.  You will notice that there are still American troops in Afghanistan and there will be for the foreseeable future.  Why?  Well, when the Taliban was running the country, locals discovered their country was sitting on an amazing amount of rare and very valuable minerals.  The locals didn't tell the Taliban about the find, but the Americans sure know about it.  In the long run, those minerals may be worth more than the oil in Iraq.  Thats why I think we'll stay in the country known as the place empires go to die.

Yes, that's cynical, jaded, and (perhaps) just a little tin-foil chapeau-ish.  But it certainly would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

Occam's Razor at work.

Mr. Droney Has Friends

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (February 7, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, our president is quite enamored with drones, especially as a weapon.  He allows the CIA to use them and he allows the Department of Defense to use them.  He also doesn't seem to mind much that they are being used domestically by local law enforcement agencies.  No one else in government seems to mind much either.  Mr. Droney has many friends.  Some surprising friends.

Last week, one of the trusty regulars at Eschaton posted a comment which linked to this article.

The government says you can’t know how many people U.S. drone strikes have killed, because that’s a state secret. But one of the most hawkish members of the U.S. Senate just said the strikes have killed 4,700 people. And his math raises questions.

That’s what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) approvingly told an Easley, South Carolina, Rotary Club on Tuesday afternoon. It’s the first public death toll provided by a U.S. government official for the signature method of killing in the U.S.’ sprawling, global counterterrorism campaign.

“We’ve killed 4,700,” Graham said, according to an Easley website. “Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida.” Graham did not evidently offer an estimate of how many innocent people the drones have killed. ...

...Graham’s disclosure underscores the extraordinary secrecy around the centerpiece of U.S. counterterrorism efforts — a military action in all but name, operated by an agency that need not explain to the public how it carries out the program. Even [Dianne] Feinstein, a big advocate of the CIA and its drones, acknowledged to Danger Room earlier this month that the CIA has a history of being deceitful with Congress about its other highly valued programs. And even after the CIA’s likely next director, John Brennan, acknowledged that the CIA performs such lethal strikes, the Justice Department still maintains that even the existence of its drone program is a state secret, so that it need not disclosure information about it in court. Whatever Graham’s intentions in stating a death toll — regardless of its accuracy — that secrecy is the most prominent, visible fact about the drones.   [Emphasis added]

 I decided to do a little checking around to see if any mainstream media were going to touch this story.  It didn't take long.  The Los Angeles Times reported essentially the same thing, but noted that not just the CIA was involved in ordering drone strikes.

The increase in Afghan drone strikes also has coincided with a greater U.S. military focus in the region on deterring Iran, which has put more demands on the Navy fighters flying off two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. In the past, one of the carriers had focused on air operations over Afghanistan.

The U.S. military drone strikes in Afghanistan are separate from the CIA drone campaigns against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Yemen. In Afghanistan, analysts say, drones often are used to back up ground forces or for killing insurgents who are spotted trying to plant roadside bombs.

But another strike last year demonstrated that U.S. forces are also using drones for targeted killings, much as the CIA is in Pakistan and Yemen.   [Emphasis added]

No one in Congress is running around with their hair on fire over the issue, and, sadly,  with good reason.  Again, from the Los Angeles Times a day later:

The United Arab Emirates is close to purchasing Predator drones from a San Diego County defense contractor, sparking concern among arms control advocates.

Under the proposed sale, revealed this week at a defense conference in Abu Dhabi and confirmed Friday, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of Poway will sell an undisclosed number of the robotic aircraft to the UAE armed forces for $197 million.

The agreement would mark the first time a non-NATO country has obtained the American-made technology, which has reshaped modern warfare. The deal has drawn scrutiny from critics who worry about the technology falling into terrorists' hands or being used by governments against their own citizens. ...

The sale would still need the approval of Congress, and there are federal restrictions on selling large drones. But General Atomics, which builds the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer drones used by the U.S. Air Force and CIA, has designed a new unarmed version of the Predator that would qualify for export.

The remotely piloted aircraft, called the Predator XP, could be used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, but will not be outfitted for weapons capability. The company did not say whether any cameras and sensor packages would be included.

But the drone has the same physical dimensions, altitude, speed and flight endurance — up to 35 hours — as the original unarmed version of the Predator drone first flown by the Air Force in 1995. ...

In its latest assessment of the industry, aerospace research firm Teal Group Corp. estimated that worldwide drone spending would almost double over the next decade, to $11.4 billion in 2022.

Anticipating the trend, the Congressional Research Service warned in a report last year that foreign competitors were getting a jump on U.S. firms.   [Emphasis added]

Now, we can't be having that, can we.  I mean, it's our technology of death.  We should reap all the benefits.

Like I said:  Mr. Droney has many friends.  Some of them in high places.

I'm thinking about going back to bed, covers drawn over my head, for good.